Posted
by
CmdrTaco
on Saturday August 28, 1999 @03:32PM
from the whats-goin'-on-here? dept.

Dr. Mabusa writes "Seems like Amiga is starting a new period of silence. The executive update section of their site, where Amiga president Jim Collas used to pledge "openness to the community" until recently, has been shut down "for the next several months".
" The rumor is pretty impressive: A Transmeta CPU, a Linux Kernel, released by Amiga within the next 2 months.

I am not holding my breath; but if it does happen it could be spectacular... those patents make interesting reading; and a Linux optimized to the "native" instruction set of a Transmeta CPU would be something to behold.

I used to be a big Amiga supporter; but after Commodore-Amiga went under (which was no surprise, they did not market the product properly) I thought it was "game over" for the Amiga.

I would be delighted if Gateway/Amiga proved me wrong. Besides, I'd love to play with a Transmeta based Linux box!

Hobbiests started coding on them because they were open and a bit of fun but they were NEVER ahead of their time and they were NEVER real computers.

Sorry QuantumG, but this is unfounded bullsh*t.

Back in 1985 the A1000 had a multitasking OS, 12-bit graphics, and 4 channel sound. During the same time period, the IBM AT was getting by with MS-DOS, 4-bit graphics, and a speaker that went "beep". The 1985 Mac was still monochrome only.

| In my opinion they multitask better than a | Linux box with equivalent hardware specs

... of course, since nobody these days has a 7 MHz 68000 with 512K of RAM (base A500), that doesn't really matter. The typical Linux box is also *doing* a lot more, and will crash a lot less than a typical Amiga.

It's an apples/oranges comparison anyway, and don't get me started on how expensive Amiga upgrades such as the PPC boards you mention are.:)

| For example, having to type the path (or at the | very least a./) to run a program that's in the | current directory you're in if it's not | specified in the path.

Oh geez... that's the SHELL. Not "Linux". And quite frankly, the Amiga's default shell is rather pathetic all the way up to AmigaOS 3.1. One of the first things an Amiga power user typically does is to install a replacement!

| the idea of having one big gigantic tree | structure instead of seperate volumes seems | like real backward thinking to me

... er, why are "separate volumes" an advantage? So programs can break when you change your HD configuration?:)

See, the new Amiga's going to be a handheld designed by super-secret startup Handspring, running multiple versions of Linux on a Transmeta CPU emulating an Athlon, an Alpha, a StrongARM, a G4 PPC, a 68060 and a MIPS simultaneously.

But seriously. Gateway is funding this new Amiga project, so the idea of them shipping a series of low-power handhelds, tablets, set-top boxes and whatnot running a locked-down, embedded Linux kernel with custom GUIs and a suite of net-centric apps is certainly possible, and clearly has nothing to do with "classic" Amigas apart perhaps from a few nifty ideas for the A/V subsystem.

Isn't the Amiga name a liability? Shouldn't they just use the patents they want and come up with a name that isn't so synonymous with (a) market failure and (b) a community of babbling loons? Amigas were swell 12-15 years ago.

And a bottle of whisky that fills itself up whenever you drink from it. Two. Two bottles of whisky that fill themselves up when you drink from it. And quantum calculations. All writen in rebol. With three bottles of whisky that fill themselves up whenever you drink from them. And the java environment from the alien ships in independence day that run java-based viruses. And four bottles of whisky that fill themselves up whenever you drink from them. And a PAL Video Toaster (tm) with a picture of Kiki Stockhammer that automagically changes Successful Product Background Image every two years. And sixteen bottles of whisky that fill themselves up whenever you drink from them. And a mouse you operate with your knee. And it's available in infraredredorangeyellowgreenblueindigovioletultrav iolet colour schemes. And I had one before you. I had one when I was In My Mother's Womb. I had one Before I Was In My Mother's Womb. And it's Atari Lynx compatible as the graphics use a superset of the same chipset. (or substitute similar Amiga(=||!=)Mac-owner style whines as feel fit).

GNUstep is an API, not a window manager. From the www.gnustep.org home page:

GNUstep is an attempt to provide an Object-Oriented application development framework and tool set for use on a wide variety of computer platforms. GNUstep is based on the original OpenStep specification provided by NeXT, Inc. (now Apple).

Perhaps you were thinking of either of the NeXT/OpenSTEP inspired window managers, Window Maker and Afterstep.

What does Perl have to do with linux? A scripting language is a scripting language, they're really only as powerful as the system commands they can use and how many more lines it takes you to do the same process. In case you didn't realize, case sensitive commands draw from case sensitive file structure. Your most often used commands are in lower case anyways, why are you complaining? Edit your shell if you're that unhappy with uppercase letters.

THE AMIGA IS DEAD! Get over it. The Amiga Corp. is dead and gone. It will never come back! There will be no 1 Ghz Amiga 5 billion with 20 gigs of RAM and only cost $599 (What I paid for my Amiga 500). This hype and vaporware is on the same level as Microsoft.

maybe QNX-PPC on existing Amigas is looking to be a real threat... maybe they realized the Linux choice was a big mistake in the eyes of the Amiga community?

I doubt they are thinking that, but I sure am.

Death to Amiga! Long live Amiga! The only thing that's two months away is the arrival of the G3 cards with Neutrino ported to 'em. A few thousand Amiga Classics are about to be reborn as Neutrino development boxes. Next year when complete PPC systems are cheap and someone decides to turn it loose on the general public, PPC Neutrino will hit the ground running. It'll be more Amiga-like than Amiga Inc's platform, and have more hearts and minds behind it.

Amiga's newborn bastard brother (Neutrino) is poised to inherit the legacy, and there's nothing Amiga Inc can do to stop it. They'll never have a product on the market in time, and even if somehow they manage it, whatever Linux variation they release will be an abomination in the eyes of the old Amiga users. They just don't have a chance.

Because nothing better has come along yet. The Amiga was the last personal computer, and the state of the art of personal computers in general has not changed since her release. The Amiga won't die until something new happens. Until then, the 1985 legacy, as old as it is, is the still shortest and freshest one available.

OK, the Amiga was *well* ahead of it's time. I would like the Amiga to be brought back with things like 3D acceleration, massive amounts of memory, better graphics resolution, et al. In fact, I believe that Amiga Inc. *could* start turning a buck again.

That being said, I originally liked the volume of Amiga stories that were being posted, but that was when the was real *news*. There shouldn't be too much to report on for a while, until Amiga starts realizing the promise that they made when they said they would be more open. I thought the last Amiga story was interesting, but this is just total fluff. I'm a *big* Amiga fan, but this is really bordering on unfounded bullsh*t.

I'm honestly not trying to start a thread of pure flaming with this, but it needs to be said better than, "D00Dz Th1$ i$ 0Ld Sh*T~!31323 Am1G4 SuX0rz!".

These are all VERY good points. I think that they will probably release a developer machine in the next couple of months in small quantities. It may not use the TM-CPU at that point, since one of the points of Amiga Objects technology is to be very abstracted from hardware, and even the OS to a certain extent. But I do think they'll release something sooner vice later, or they will have dropped the ball capitalizing on all of the hype they've managed to generate up to this point.

I agree that Amiga has released way more information than a company in their position should. But they have a devoted user community and they feel they should not alienate... unfortunately said user community is for the most part ignorant of why what Amiga is doing is going to be revolutionary. From what I've seen (and I was at AmiWest just to check out and report on the Transmeta rumor), most of the folks there were what you would expect to see of people clinging to a platform that is, for the greater part, dead.

Amiga, Inc. has managed to describe a rather complete view of their new platform. Its technologies that nobody else is pulling together in quite the same way, along with a recognizable brand name and image. I think they will be the first to market with anything on the scale they're talking about, but I think giving away as much as they've had has given a jumpstart to any "me too's" that may dilute their market, and I think that may have been unwise.

I think you should check your facts first, Amiga has outright said they're using Linux. The Transmeta connection is the rumor part of this (but then *anything* regarding Transmeta is rumor at this point:)

Isn't the Amiga name a liability? Shouldn't they just use the patents they want and come up with a name that isn't so synonymous with (a)market failure and (b) a community of babbling loons? Amigas were swell 12-15 years ago.

This overlooks their target market, home-based consumers. Yes, to the industry, Amiga is synonymous with Commodore, which is in turn synonymous with failure. As far as their target demographic goes, Amiga is a fresh name. And for the people that did have experiences with Amiga it is reminiscient of that fast, inexpensive, friendly computer they used before being forced into the Windows world.

They have recently released version 3.5 of the (old) operating system. Maybe they are trying not to disturb 3.5 sales. On the other hand, it's been a long time since Amiga released the last version of the OS (before 3.5). Maybe they have released 3.5 just to make an estimation of what could be the coverage of the new OS and now they are waiting to see the market's reaction for later making the necessary changes to the new OS and machine to make it success.

holding Walt Disney and the contracts for all this in his left suit jacket pocket?? Maybe one of these days people will take the Amiga and the rumors seriously, instead of snickering to themselves how slow a 68040@50MHz is. Maybe the throngs of people will surround Disneyland in a giant show of Civil Disobedience demanding both their Amiga computer with Linux RTOS and Transmeta asyncrhonous CPU and that Pluto be given bi-pedal motion the same as Goofy. I mean, when is corporate America going to take the demands of the lowly consumer seriously????

Well, that's a nice rumor and sounds like it could be an interesting piece of hardware. However, Amiga's problems before were never with their hardware, it was with their marketing. If they don't get that right this time they're still going nowhere.

It will undoubedly have impressive hardware - be it the MIPS+ATI graphics core, the Transmeta or PPC CPU. All these things are readily available. What makes Amiga live on is not the original hardware or software, but the vision of design.

It will be difficult for a new system to really wow people when it uses stock hardware. Or, more likely, it will have some wow factor up front, but it will be lost as soon as the next wave of improved stock hardware hits the market.

What's been keeping amazing new makes of computer from breaking into the home market is that the PC makes up for quality of overall design by getting greater horsepower every few months. So if you put something in an Amiga box that can be compared to a current offering--say ATI's RAGE 128 core--then it will start to look dated very quickly--as soon as the next generation of ATI chips shows up for the PC next quarter. Imagine if the audio/visual hardware in the original Amiga kept getting upgraded and improved--for a machine other than the Amiga.

Yes, you could upgrade this new Amiga to use the latest hardware, but then what have you gained? You might as well have bought a PC.

There are some amazing things that could be done with a new machine. How about some of the ultra low power CPUs that are being developed (like Chuck Moore's F21, which will use practically no power and cost only a buck or two to manufacture). Or how about the graphics chip developed at VM Labs? What about graph reduction hardware designed for running functional languages? For a new system to break the PC blahs, it needs to be very forward thinking. Putting PC parts in a new box won't cut it.

was transmeta nearly as "popular" before linus started working there? i don't know, but i think linus has more to do with their popularity than their secretiveness. i mean, if some random company in silicon valley said nothing about what they were doing, who would care?

the fact that linus is working there _and_ nobody knows what they're doing makes it very interesting. and while saying nothing about what they're doing is an interesting marketing plow, they're not making any money doing that, so at some point they're going to have to release an actual product that actual people will buy. it may or may not be the amiga CPU, but it will have to be _something_ whether or not it eliminates their popularity.

You're right - it's like a Harley. An old piece of junk that hasn't been redesigned in far too long that is only kept alive because of a cultural quirk. Something that modern machines have long since surpassed. Incidentally, I had an Amiga and it was great, but I really don't understand what the thrill is now. Can the architecture really handle the modern world ? Can it be upgraded as well as a PC ? Why have yet another standard ? And if there does have to be another one - why not BE ? Something new, clean, well designed and worth it ?

My thoughts as well. A further thought was that, assuming we (and all the other like minded/.ers) are correct, Amiga could/should have simply posted something on their executive update page that they were in the process of major internal workings, and that further details won't be available until they can organize their thoughts, or something like that. At least that way, their going ahead and just keeping people like us from major speculation, and making themselves look a bit more organized.

Transmeta isn't exactly thriving on this mystery. since they don't have a product, it currently doesn't matter what people really think of them. obviously they have SOMETHING. i doubt that they just sit around the office sipping coffee all day.

I know Gateway now owns Amiga, are they going to make this evident and offer Gateway Amiga PC's with Linux? If so it could really be the push software manufacturers need to jump on the linux wagon. I would love to see linux be more than hype in the media and have a place in joe computer users home.

Anyway, anyone know if this will be the case or will Gateway keep out of Amiga affairs for the most part?

I paid $20 for my amiga 600.. man that's a beast.. but my mate managed to delete half the harddrive and we had to get new benchmark disks (warez) and then he promised he would reinstall it but ya know.. it was a big of effort.

Yer.. the "self rightous" part is pretty inciteful. This post wasn't about me not liking amigas.. this was post was about me not liking the desperate grab at news.. "oh.. looks like someone did 'touch index.html' on the amiga page.. better report it on slashdot because that appeals to 2 major groups, linux freaks and Amiga freaks". Surely everyone has to agree that this was a complete non-story. Can you at least conceed that?

Blah.. Commodore made HOME computers to be used by HOME users and programmed by BIG companies. Hobbiests started coding on them because they were open and a bit of fun but they were NEVER ahead of their time and they were NEVER real computers. What's more, they PATENTED all of their chips and designs making it ILLEGAL for anyone else to make amigas. This is worse than keeping the design secret because they said "here is exactly how all our parts work and here is where you can buy the replacements but don't even think about making your own amiga".. or designing a better one for that matter. I honestly compare this behaviour with Apple who still to this day have "registed service centers" that charge through the nose. Apple is a company based on FUD and ignorance and so was Commodore. By targeting the HOME user and discouraging independant developers (ala Nintendo) they bred a market that was hopelessly devoted to a lost cause. Crappy games machines.

It started out when Walt Disney first constructed Disneyworld. It was at that moment the Amiga/Transmeta deal was formed because it was necessary to ensure the secrecy of the truth that the Hall of Presidents at Disneyland conatins the true leaders of the world. Also, Ameritech and TCI Cable are involved in this shadowy games. Torvalds is merely a pawn in their elaborate plan. I'm not paranoid, they are just all out to get me.

Well lets see, what else has happened recently? They "released" AmigaOS3.5, some company called IWin is making unbelievable claims about their new Amiga compatible, while makers of PPC cards are making a push for QNX on the Amiga.

Maybe there is a much bigger demand for 3.5 than they thought, maybe the IWin thing is for real, maybe QNX-PPC on existing Amigas is looking to be a real threat... maybe they realized the Linux choice was a big mistake in the eyes of the Amiga community?

I swear to God, out of all the communities on the net, there is none that can create and support rumors quite like the Amiga community.

How anyone can believe a bit of this is beyond me. When they actually produce silicon that can sit in a pile of packaging on a store shelf, get excited. Otherwise, just lump it in with the other BS we've been hearing for years now. My personal Amiga compost heap could fertilize the Gobi for growing corn.

It started sometime last year, when Amiga Inc announced a mystery "Multimedia Chip" (MMC), that would power their new-fangle PC. VERY reliable insiders said "It's amazing, never seen any performance like this.... but I can't say what it is." The then CEO - Jeff Schindler, said "we can't announce our CPU partner yet, but believe us, it's revolutionary". At this point, the "Amiga Community"(tm) went speculation mad (as usual), and several names, including TransMeta's were bandied around. More recently, the hype got going again, because AInc were hiring, and talking about MIPS engineers, and links to ATI, etc. People started to suggest Transmeta again, and it started to become widespread. When the Linux choice was announced, people put 2+2 together, and got Transmeta (again). At the recent World of Amiga show, the video showed the Transmeta Logo (along with Sun's logo, ATI's logo, Corel's logo etc.) Amigans took this to mean that this was the chip choice.

BUT... remember - this has NEVER been officially announced or even hinted at in any statement by AInc. The Transmeta logo may have been used in the Linux->Linus->Transmeta context to represent their choice of Linux for the Kernel base.

That's the story.... it could just as easily turn out to be the Sun MAJC chip [sun.com]...

I can't find the article but didn't the Prez of Amiga post a note two months ago stating that they had decided to go with BeOS because Be had the Amiga UI built in? Anyone remember that German MacOS Clone Vaporware last year...what was it...COS?

I'm not negating Amiga's positive's... Back in the day, It was the kick ass - more for less. A color Screen!! Key words there is back in the day. Sure it can be upgraded etc, but considering there has'nt been a core product line in years, I question the ability of that company.(albeit owned by Gateway now - a good thing!). Why did the productline die? Apart froma few true beleivers, there's nothing more than a carcass left of that company. How can they have the momentum to bring the "Transmeta" CPU to the spotlight and do it justice?

If they knew they would produce something in two months they would be shifting their publicity machine into overdrive.

The fact that they're not saying anything indicates that they're not sure what's going to happen and want to keep their mouths shut until they have something coherent to say.

It could be Gateway is shutting them down or forcing a change in direction. Or maybe they're looking for capital. Or maybe they're being sued for dropping QNX. It could be lots of things, but it's bound to be bad.

When amiga showed a demo movie at some big show, they also had a part where they showed all the logo's of all the companies that are helping to build parts of the new amiga systems. One of these logo's was Transmeta's... this video was available online as wel, and is thus a good source. It did not describe the role however that transmeta would play in the new amiga machine. But since transmeta's current patents all relate to CPU's, it is a very educated estimate, but a estimate non the less.

Is it just me, or does this seem unlikely? I know, I know, if it does happen you'll all be thinking "We told you so," but Transmeta seems to thrive on mystery... if they actually released a product, their popularity (such as it is) could disappear. I'm not saying it will, but where they've been keeping whatever it is they're doing a secret for so long, could it be too little, too late? Just a thought.

Amiga? The Toy right? Not to bruise anyone's ego (I am a former Amiga and Atari ST owner), but let's see - a company whos'e fastes product claims to be a 60840 @ 50 Mhz? They've been out of it for a while.... Let's face it, Transmeta would be bett'n the farm (pigs and all) if they expect Amiga to launch them into the next millenium...

I've read many people asking why isn't Amiga dead, isn't it a toy, etc., on many previous articles linked up in Slashdot.

My answer is: if a machine and it's users can continue a market for Amiga, without a functional parent company (the fastest Amiga is as fast as whatever PowerPC chip you care to mention), and people like the doubters still have to ask that question 5 years after Commodore fell, you know that there is something about Amiga that will never let it die.

It had *principle*. Jay Miner did it right first time around - the linux kernel this time will make Amiga no longer conceivbale as a toy by the uninitiated (it is far beyond toy OSs like Windows and Macs, but lags behind the *nix's). CPU is irrelevant - as are the latest fastest graphics cards with xxxmillion polys/sec.

It will undoubedly have impressive hardware - be it the MIPS+ATI graphics core, the Transmeta or PPC CPU. All these things are readily available. What makes Amiga live on is not the original hardware or software, but the vision of design.

WIndows and Macs are dying for the underlying power of linux. But they lack robust design. Linux has the power, but as Torvalds has indirectly said on many occations, due to it's development implementation, it never *had* a design.

Amiga combines it all - and adds the special sauce that makes it Amiga.:)